Bring Me the Rhinoceros

Author: John Tarrant
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 159030618X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A provocative and playful exploration of the Zen koan tradition that reveals how everyday paradoxes are an integral part of our spiritual journey Bring Me the Rhinoceros is an unusual guide to happiness and a can opener for your thinking. For fifteen hundred years, Zen koans have been passed down through generations of masters, usually in private encounters between teacher and student. This book deftly retells more than a dozen traditional koans, which are partly paradoxical questions dangerous to your beliefs and partly treasure boxes of ancient wisdom. Koans show that you don’t have to impress people or change into an improved, more polished version of yourself. Instead you can find happiness by unbuilding, unmaking, throwing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. Author and Zen teacher John Tarrant brings the heart of the koan tradition out into the open, reminding us that the old wisdom remains as vital as ever, a deep resource available to anyone in any place or time.

The Gateless Gate

Author: Koun Yamada
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0861719719
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
In The Gateless Gate, one of modern Zen Buddhism's uniquely influential masters offers classic commentaries on the Mumonkan, one of Zen's greatest collections of teaching stories. This translation was compiled with the Western reader in mind, and includes Koan Yamada's clear and penetrating comments on each case. Yamada played a seminal role in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West from Japan, going on to be the head of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Community. The Gateless Gate would be invaluable if only for the translation and commentary alone, yet it's loaded with extra material and is a fantastic resource to keep close by: An in-depth Introduction to the History of Zen Practice Lineage charts Japanese-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-Japanese conversion charts for personal names, place names, and names of writings Plus front- and back-matter from ancient and modern figures: Mumon, Shuan, Kubota Ji'un, Taizan Maezumi, Hugo Enomiya-Lasalle, and Yamada Roshi's son, Masamichi Yamada. A wonderful inspiration for the koan practitioner, and for those with a general interest in Zen Buddhism.

Rhinoceros Success

Author: Scott Alexander
Publisher: Ramsey Press
ISBN: 1937077152
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 78

Book Description
Go get the life you want. Be a Rhinoceros! There is something dangerous about this book. Something big. Something full of power, energy and force of will. It could be about you. You could become three tons of thick-skinned, snorting hard-charging rhinoceros. It is time to go get the life you want.

The Light Inside the Dark

Author: John Tarrant
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060931116
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Book Description
In this landmark guide to the spiritual journey, respected Zen teacher and psychotherapist John Tarrant brings together ancient Eastern traditions and the Western passion for the soul. Using real-life stories, Zen tales, and Greek myths, The Light Inside the Dark shows how our darkest experiences can be the gates to wisdom and joy. Tarrant leads us through the inevitable descents of our journey--from the everyday world of work and family into the treasure cave of the interior life--from which we return with greater love of life's vivid, common gifts. Written with empathy and a poet's skill, The Light Inside the Dark is the freshest and most challenging work on the soul to he published in years.

Introduction to Zen Koans

Author: James Ishmael Ford
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614293155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Book Description
An indispensible guide to koans, teaching the reader about the importance of lineage, the practice of “just sitting,” and koan practice as paths to awakening. “This marvelous book opens the treasure house of Zen and yet, happily, does not dispel its mystery. James Ford, an excellent storyteller and longtime Zen practitioner, presents a detailed and beautiful description of the craft of zazen, including “just sitting” and various forms of breath meditation—but focuses primarily on koan introspection. The power of koans, these 'public cases' from China, has never ceased to enrich my own experience of Zen. They are a medium of exploration of the history, culture, and view of Zen, but most importantly are a medium of awakening. James Ford is fundamentally a koan person, and for this, the book is particularly rich, opening the practice of koans in a splendid way. I am grateful for his long experience as a teacher and practitioner of this rare and powerful practice. Since the word koan has found its way into popular English usage, I am grateful too for the more nuanced and fertile view of koans that Ford presents. His definition of the word is telling: “a koan points to something of deep importance, and invites us to stand in that place.” He has also has created a wonderful translation of the Heart Sutra, Zen’s central scripture—and carefully opens up the heart of the Heart Sutra through scholarship and practice. Rich in textual sources and woven throughout with the perspectives of contemporary teachers, Introduction to Zen Koans sheds new light on ancient teachings. Through it, the reader will discover the importance of lineage, the traceless traces of the Zen ancestors, and the places of “just sitting” and koan practice as paths to awakening, as the great doorways into Zen.” —from the foreword by Joan Halifax

Yell Less, Love More

Author: Sheila McCraith
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA
ISBN: 1627881778
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
In this guidebook to happier parenting, author Sheila McCraith shares daily thoughts, tips, and motivational personal stories to help you toss out the screams and welcome in the peace. Do you often find yourself losing your cool and yelling at your kids (or grandkids or students)? It happens to us all, but it doesn’t have to. With Yell Less, Love More, you’ll learn practical, simple solutions to keep you focused on loving more and yelling less, no matter what the circumstance. Take the Orange Rhino 30-day challenge to yell less, organized into 30 short, approachable, and easy-to-follow daily sections—which you can use and adjust in any way that works for you. Whether you have one child or twenty (or one you still yell at who is twenty), strengthen your relationships and maybe even laugh a little more—by taking the challenge today. The Rhino: A naturally calm animal that charges when provoked. The Orange Rhino: A person that parents with warmth and determination and who doesn’t charge with words when angry, impatient, or simply in a bad mood. Yell Less, Love More includes: 100 alternatives to yelling Simple, daily steps to follow Honest stories to inspire Parenting revelations A summarizing chapter of key takeaways, including most frequent triggers and multiple solutions for each of them Trigger-tracking sheets Unlike the preachy, unrealistic, dry, and/or tedious parenting books you’ve read before, Yell Less, Love More is like having a heart-to-heart talk with your best friend. With this warm, colorful, and easy-to-use guide, it is possible to stop yelling and start enjoying a calmer, happier life because of it.

Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away

Author: Ajahn Chah
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834823993
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Book Description
Powerful Buddhist teachings, demystified—from the spiritual mentor of Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield Previous books by Ajahn Chah have consisted of collections of short teachings on a wide variety of subjects. This new book focuses on the theme of impermanence, offering powerful remedies for overcoming our deep-seated fear of change, including guidance on letting go of attachments, living in the present, and taking up the practice of meditation. Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away also contains stories and anecdotes about this beloved master's life and his interactions with students, from his youth as a struggling monk to his last years when American students were coming to study with him in significant numbers. These stories help to convey Ajahn Chah's unique spirit and teaching style, allowing readers to know him both through his words and the way in which he lived his life.

Pescan

Author: Abbie Cornish
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1683355075
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 587

Book Description
A cookbook of pescatarian, dairy-free recipes for healthy eating, inspired by macrobiotic and Mediterranean diets—includes photos. Actress Abbie Cornish and chef Jacqueline King are best friends who bonded over their love of food and self-care. A few years ago, Abbie, a novice cook, asked Jacqueline, a graduate of the culinary program at the National Gourmet Institute, for cooking lessons. Every Sunday, they would take trips to the local farmers’ market, spend all day cooking, and then serve these dishes to their family and friends. Pescan is an extension of this tradition and all the food they explored together. Their way of eating—which they call pescan—is centered on plant-based, dairy-free dishes, but with high-protein seafood and eggs incorporated. The recipes, like Veggie Tempeh Bolognese, Artichoke Hummus with Za’atar, and Miso-Ginger Glazed Black Cod, are highly nutrient dense, incredibly energizing, and very accessible. Pescan is a collection of healthy recipes, but it’s also a story of friendship, healing, and developing a more positive relationship with food.

Red Thread Zen

Author: Susan Murphy
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 161902876X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
Love, attachment, the passions, gender, carnality, birth, bodily being, mortality, belonging, suffering, hope, despair, personhood, imagination, vitality, the struggle to be fully human – how do these things dwell wholly in emptiness, how do we reconcile their vivid life with 'no–thingness'? The red (or 'vermilion') thread originally connoted the color of the silk undergarments courtesans were obliged to wear. Most spiritual traditions do their best to distance themselves as thoroughly as possible from such direct and intimate contact with the fact of impassioned human bodily being, if not to declare open war upon the flesh, and the female body that most plainly bears flesh into the world. Spirituality has trouble dealing with the fact that we arrive here covered in blood. But the red thread can never be cut. Why not? Why would no perfectly accomplished saint ever even dream of cutting it? Red Thread Zen will set out to explore every corner of the magnificent koan of being 'still attached to the red thread, or 'line of tears'. This is an argument against the bloodless and socially disengaged form of 'Buddhism' that is generally being gestated in the West, one that shades too readily into the blandest of bland self–help.

No-Gate Gateway

Author: David Hinton
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 161180437X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
A new translation of one of the great koan collections--by the premier translator of the Chinese classics--that reveals it to be a literary and philosophical masterwork beyond its association with Chan/Zen. A monk asked: “A dog too has Buddha-nature, no?” And with the master’s enigmatic one-word response begins the great No-Gate Gateway (Wu-Men Kuan), ancient China’s classic foray into the inexpressible nature of mind and reality. For nearly eight hundred years, this text (also known by its Japanese name, Mumonkan) has been the most widely used koan collection in Zen Buddhism—and with its comic storytelling and wild poetry, it is also a remarkably compelling literary masterwork. In his radical new translation, David Hinton places this classic for the first time in the philosophical framework of its native China, in doing so revealing a new way of understanding Zen—in which generic “Zen perplexity” is transformed into a more approachable and earthy mystery. With the poetic abilities he has honed in his many translations, Hinton brilliantly conveys the book’s literary power, making it an irresistible reading experience capable of surprising readers into a sudden awakening that is beyond logic and explanation.